Emmanuel Macron is already showing he is no progressive (original) (raw)

Emmanuel Macron's "new way": Setting the course for re-election in 2022

2020

French President Emmanuel Macron wants to be re-elected in 2022. In view of citizens’ disenchantment with the political and social order of their country and the consequences of the Corona pandemic, the president feels compelled to embark on a “new way”. This new approach has three components: a move away from the policy of budget consolidation, a political positioning within the neoliberal-conservative faction of the political spectrum, and greater proximity to the people. If Macron receives interim support from the European Union (EU) to cushion the consequences of Covid-19 for France’s economic and social system, he should be able to strengthen reform forces at home and enable France to broker compromises on vital subjects concerning EU reform.

France: The Macron Presidency: Transformation, Regression, or Stasis?

Europe Today: A Twenty-First Century Introduction, 6th Edition, 2023

The purpose of the present chapter is to assess whether Macron’s presidency has lived up to the expectations raised by his election in 2017 and to flesh out the departures and continuities it presents within the longer run of French political development. It will evaluate Macron’s leadership and policies against those of his immediate predecessors, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, with a specifically domestic focus on the economic and sociopolitical arenas. Space limitations combined with the eventfulness of Macron’s first term in office unfortunately mean that discussion of Macron’s European and foreign policy will have to be left for another time.

Macron: A Class Act (ISSF forum on Emmanuel Macron)

The International Security Studies Forum, 2017

This paper examines the social and economic circumstances that explain Emmanuel Macron's election in May 2017, emphasizing that his victory lay in his ability to assembly an effective and previously unprecedented coalition to support neoliberal reforms--a coalition that was partially prefigured by early rounds of voting on referenda relating to European matters.

Emmanuel Macron's Presidency: Vision or Mirage

TRT World Research Centre

As tensions continue to rise in the Eastern Mediterranean, French President Emmanuel Macron has spared no effort to reassert French power in a region that he sees as core to the re-assertion of French influence. While the outcomes of his efforts remain uncertain, it has become increasingly clear that his influence, particularly in France, is increasingly being called into question. This Policy Outlook outlines the contours of Macron's presidency and examines the roots of both his domestic engagements and his foreign policy vision, particular as it relates to Africa, the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Emmanuel Macron: A New Hope for Europe?

Centre for International Relations | Centrum Stosunków Międzynarodowych, 2017

Emmanuel Macron’s victory in both presidential and parliamentary elections in France this year was a big surprise as he won on a clear pro-EU platform and defied the dominant sentiments of populism and Euroscepticism that have been on the rise across the continent in the past decade. For many supporters of the Union, Macron is giving back energy to the weakened project and has been ‘‘a new hope in Europe’’ with his plans to reform both France and the EU. Are they right?

Understanding the unexpected: Macron’s victory in the 2017 French presidential election

Developments in French Politics 6, 2020

The 2017 French presidential election attracted considerable attention. After the 2016 Brexit vote in the UK, the election of Donald Trump in the USA, and in a context of increasing support for radical and populist movements, Emmanuel Macron appeared as the embodiment of the potential success of liberal values and pro-European support, all the while rejuvenating the political elite. In the aftermath of his victory, hagiographic accounts of his election flourished and underlined a triumph against all odds of a young prodigy with an impeccable curriculum vitae, owing everything to his optimist and audacious vision and shining personality, his rejection of the 'old world' of sclerotic political parties, and his ability to embody France's aspirations to trust civil society and youth and finally reform itself (Besson, 2017; Couturier, 2017, Prisette, 2017). Obviously, these a posteriori reconstructions are inaccurate, incomplete and biased when seeking to understand the reasons behind Macron's success. In reality, his electoral victory was largely unexpected, as he entered politics only in mid-2016 after having left his post as Minister of the Economy and created from scratch a new political movement, En Marche!. The year 2017 also saw the acme of support for the National Front in a French presidential election, and marked the surge of a radical left protest vote. More generally, the 2017 French electoral sequence represents the culmination of a progressive reshuffle undergone by the French party system over the previous few years. The traditional French governing parties, like most of their European counterparts, had since 2008 been under considerable stress in a context of economic crisis, anti-establishment attitudes and the rise of protest politics.

Onwards to the new political frontier: Macron’s electoral populism

Organization

This speaking out article argues that populism is not only a phenomenon that characterizes extremist figures such as Farage, Trump or Le Pen. Drawing on Laclau’s conceptualization of populism, we show how French President Emmanuel Macron developed in 2017 a form of anti-extreme electoral populism relying upon (1) the creation of a new political frontier between ‘progressive reformers’ and ‘backward-looking conservatives’, and (2) a number of key empty signifiers, such as ‘Revolution’, ‘(The Republic) onwards’ and ‘and at the same time’. These discursive levers allowed Macron’s campaigns to incarnate a gradually larger plurality of demands, modulating the openness of equivalential chains over three successful electoral steps: the presidential first round, the presidential second round and the parliamentary elections. In parallel, his movement gradually moved from emergent organizing through a partial organization to a bureaucratized and hierarchized party. Thus, our analysis illumina...

Macron's Foreign Policy: Not a Zero Sum Game

“La France est de retour”. This is how French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe commented the results of the June elections when La République en Marche!, the new party founded by Emmanuel Macron, swept into power. There are two things to note about this concept of “France is back”.